


more bitter than sweet

by bluetint



Category: GOT7
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Falling In Love, First Love, Heavy Angst, M/M, POV First Person, Post-Break Up, Vomiting, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 16:09:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21018554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluetint/pseuds/bluetint
Summary: First love isn't as jazzy as the movies make it out to be. Sometimes, it can be the worst thing to happen to someone.





	more bitter than sweet

**Author's Note:**

> context: I read History Is All You Left me by Adam Silvera and then the markbum prompt generator went wild (original prompt was falling in love, cheek squishing and falling out of love a HA ha) and I listened to ‘The less I know the better & Sexy back 10 Hours’ and now we have this monstrous word vomit on our hands.
> 
> To everyone whose feelings were hurt in the writing of this story; I'm sorry I love you guys ;_;
> 
> I think I tagged appropriately, but if you think I missed something please (politely) let me know.

\---

The sky is grey. 

It's raining outside. 

The Wi-Fi isn't working.

I reach for my iPod, to put on some music, and see that it’s dead. 

Sigh.

I have to finish packing. But I don't want to pack. I've been putting off packing for college all summer. It seems like even the universe has had enough of my procrastination and decided to do something about it. 

I press refresh but nothing happens. I reach for my phone. That’s dead too. I stare at the screen until my eyes water. Admitting defeat, I stand up. My foot protests. It has fallen asleep. I look around and decide to start with my closet. 

I’m not one of those unorganized, messy people who just stuff their clothes back in the closet whenever they’re back from the laundry. I’m usually good about folding and putting them in their respective sections. But due to recent circumstances, my closet, along with my life has turned upside down and its contents come spilling out when I open it.

Blinking and shaking my head, I pick my way through the pile. Jeans, shirts, hoodies, socks, scarves, jackets… it’s a disaster. A black piece of cloth snags at my toe. Muttering, I pull it out and realize it’s not my shirt.

It was a rainy day when I met you. Mom was fretting about whether or not you’d be able to find your way here from the airport. She wanted to get you herself, but your mother assured her it was fine. You were a big boy, you’d manage.

You were fifteen. 

You showed up at our doorstep seven minutes past your intended arrival time. You were wearing that wretched Snoop Dogg shirt. I don’t know if I ever told you, but Brian clowned you in our DMs for months for that. 

We’re not hurting for money or anything, but my parents do this thing where they offer lodging to foreign exchange students for the barest minimum. It’s my parents’ way of ‘giving back to the community’ or something. I don’t know, that’s what Mom says anyway.

You weren’t the first foreign host we’d had, you weren’t the last. But you are the one I’ll always remember.

We got off on the wrong foot. Literally. I wasn’t in a good mood the day you arrived. Our last boarder was a bit of a tool with an attitude problem and I wasn’t looking forward to spending the last week of my summer babysitting some kid who couldn’t even speak basic English.

Yeah, I was a bit of a tool too. 

You dropped the suitcase on my foot and I cursed. Not at you. But you thought I meant you. You hadn’t been in our house a whole twenty-four hours yet, and we were already fighting. Brian translated. It’s something you found forever funny. It wasn’t funny at the time, though.

Around the three month mark (heh), I was convinced we would never get along. Between school and my social awkwardness and other shortcomings, I barely had time to think about working on our communication. It was with that very thought in mind that I crept to the roof for a smoke (my parents were chill enough to house complete strangers for months on end, but they flipped their shit at the slightest mention of drugs) when I saw you crying.

Back then, I didn’t know that would be one of the rare times I would see you cry. You always seemed so serious and put together, that I couldn’t wrap my head around the sight of it. Tears seemed wrong on your face, somehow.

This part’s a bit of a blur. I remember you looking up, seeing me, and _tensing_ so fucking hard I swore I could _hear_ it. Between one breath and the next, I’ve moved, my joint’s gone to waste and you’re sobbing into my chest. Honest to god snot, spit and endless heaving sobs imprinting myself into my red hoodie. You didn’t even give me time to be disgusted because the words you dropped between the sobs had grabbed my attention.

I think that was the first time I realized your situation. A boy, who’d grown up his entire life in the same house, same city, same country had been sent to an entirely different place where nothing was familiar, not even the language which is the anchor most people grab on to when in a situation like this, and the only guy who could get him out of it was being a dick.

Not my best moment, to be honest.

It was a cold night and you were up there in just your shorts and I didn’t even think when I took off my hoodie and gave it to you. At that moment, we didn’t know it would go on to become your favorite thing to wear. 

We had come a long way from those boys Brian had translated the fight for. When you pull your head out of your ass and clear it of the shit, things get better.

We were hanging out in Brian’s room. We were supposed to watch a movie. But then Brian remembered he had homework and then his printer died, so he had to run out. You were reading The Children of Willow Farm by Enid Blyton, I think. Jackson said it was an easy read for those looking to improve their English.

After the night on the roof, I’d made some changes, one of which was reaching out to Jackson regarding your dilemma and he declared himself your English Guru. You two connected faster than we did. Mainly because he wasn’t an asshole like I had been. As a show of support and to make up for it, I started learning Korean. Sometimes you read to me. You were reading to me then. I going through Brian’s music albums, putting them back in chronological order. Brian hated that. You thought the disorder bothered me, but I only did it to fuck with him. You thought it was funny.

You never told me you found it cute until that day. I was holding about eight to ten albums when you looked up from your passage and said, “Mark. Go out with me?”

I can’t recall what was more surprising; your mouth going from forming sentences about milking cows to asking me out or me dropping the albums on your head, giving you a black eye. I was surprised, all right?

It was raining the day I fell in love with you too.

You were sixteen. I was seventeen. 

I don’t know if it was rebelliousness or if you genuinely wanted a piercing. I was new to this boyfriend thing (we couldn’t even say the word out loud in the first month) and I was trying. So when you said you wanted to go get a piercing instead of the park like we’d originally planned, I said yes. Somewhere along the way, I agreed to get one with you.

It hurt, but I didn’t let it show. Mainly for your sake, lest you chicken out. But mostly, I wanted to look cool.

When it was your turn, you tried to be cool about it. Oh god, _how you tried._ Earlobe stinging, I was holding the camera at the ready, because you documented special moments and your first piercing is pretty much qualified. 

I had let go of the camera briefly, to get my phone that was in my pocket when you grabbed my hand out of nowhere, and cried, _“Hyung!”_ at the same time the piercing gun went off. Your eyes started watering and I was so alarmed I nearly dropped the camera, which in turn, agitated you more.

That was the first time you called me _hyung._ You were a stickler for formality, but you had never ever called _me_ that. It still boggles me how happy that made me.

The piercer wasn’t amused. He was rolling his eyes and muttering about annoying teenagers. I would have punched him for the casual racist remark he’d thrown in, if you hadn’t been holding both my hands. 

I forgot to take pictures, but that's okay because the day is seared into both our minds like a brand. The evidence of it sits on our ears in the form of matching green studs. The rain had let up by the time we were done. I was thinking about what to do next and was turning my head in your direction when your mouth met mine and I stopped breathing. You took advantage of that and slipped your tongue in like it belonged there.

(it did)

We hadn’t quite gotten around to kissing yet. Sure, hand holding and quick chaste pecks were there but no one had pulled out their tongue yet. 

“Hyung,” you said after you pulled away. Your nose was red from crying. Your cheeks were red from blowing my mind. You took my hand and said, “I want ice-cream.” 

And I was gone. 

I fell. 

I fell so hard I’m pretty sure I got bruises. 

(it would be the first of many)

Sunday mornings were spent on Skype with your parents.

“Sundays with the in-laws,” Brian and Jackson used to joke. It used to make my stomach do flips. You kept them updated about your time here; sending detailed emails with pictures attached. Sometimes you sent pictures of us. You look just like your mom.

Because I’m not great at the ‘getting to know you’ part of a relationship (if you ask me, I don’t even know how I got Brian and Jackson and why they’re still around) we play Twenty Questions.

I’m lame.

The questions usually start out light. 

“What's your favorite color?”

“Favorite album?

“Dumbest thing you ever did?”

“iPhone or Android?”

“PDF or ePUB?”

“Manga or anime?” 

I love playing Twenty Questions with you because when you talk about yourself, you light up like that Christmas tree you helped us decorate.

Questions like these help me gain some insight on how you grew up. It definitely explained your confusion at things here better. Like the time you were shook about how we had no summer school here. It had taken the three of us to convince you that it was okay to relax for three months a year. Or that we changed classes for every period. Or the tipping thing.

I had my moments too.

“Wait, you’re telling me you don’t get kicked out of class at all?”

“Yeah. Cuz, the constitution says no kid should be denied an education and all.”

“What if the kid doesn’t want to be educated?”

__

“Tough shit, I guess.”

“Hold on, you can nap in class but you can’t leave even if you’re dying?”

“Kinda sorta, yeah.”

“Jaeb, how does that even make sense.”

“It’s not meant to, _sshhhh, baby,_ don’t think about it too much.”

“This is weird but not as weird as that shopping bag to hold other shopping bags thing.”

Sometimes it ended up being wholesome or hilarious.

“So our cat, Nora, she’s old, right?” You have three cats. “She likes to roam around at night and come back in the morning. So my mom waits on the porch before breakfast and when she walks over, mom massages her paws, because she must be tired from all that walking.” My feet were in your lap when you were telling me this, and you actually demonstrated how your mom massaged. That's how we discovered you gave good foot rubs and that your mom is a complete sweetheart.

Or the time you hit your head while trying the head spin dance move and forgot your address and mistook some stranger for your dad. 

But sometimes we end up taking a detour into a different territory. You know, the serious kind. We haven’t stepped on any minefields yet. But we nearly do when I ask, without thinking, if your parents knew you were gay.

It’s not a big deal here. But in my carelessness (or ignorance) I forgot it’s not like that everywhere, even if the times have changed.

“My parents know I’m not straight,” you say, picking your words carefully. You picked words like a jeweler picks precious stones for a mold. With great care and thought. “They were cool with it. My dad actually said, ‘Son, you could date trees for all I care, so long as you study hard and make something of yourself.’” You laugh, carefree and fond.

“Jaebeom?”

“Yeah?”

“You have great parents.”

“I know.”

“I’m glad.”

You squeeze my hand.

“And you do a pretty good impression of your dad.”

“I try but his is better.”

I don’t remember what I was going to say next. Now I wonder if I should have said something more, something along the lines of I'm glad you exist or I'm happy they sent you here, to me, but I don't because that's when Mom calls us for dinner. 

We don’t bring it up again. That memory, it slips, like water through your fingers, and disappears into the vast blank space of our brains, where sometimes your memories go, only to resurface much later in life without warning.

Moments like now, where I’ll come across something of yours, or something that’ll remind me of you, or where I’m just doing nothing out of the ordinary, minding my own business.

I blink and realize there’s a lump in my throat. With unsteady hands, I fold the shirt up and push it under the bed. Out of sight out of mind. 

It used to scare me how easy it was to love you. In the beginning I thought we would never get along. You were everywhere. We went to the same school. We hung out after school (Mom said we had to make you feel welcome). You lived in _my_ house. There was no breathing room.

But suddenly, there wasn’t _enough_ breathing room. Your confession was the key to the Pandora’s box of love I didn’t know I had for you. It was _terrifying._

“People fall in love all the time, Mark,” were Jackson’s words when I talked to him about it.

“People, Jackson. Not teenagers. Not kids in high school who can barely pass basic Algebra.”

“Do you see basic Algebra being used in real life? No. Do you see love? Yes. Age doesn't make love any less valid. Love is love. Unless you're some kind of perverted stalker pedo creep. Then it’s wrong. Don’t think about it too much.”

But that’s the thing. I _did_ think about it too much.

Did you ever think about it? How our moms found each other over a distance of 9,555 km in an online cooking group. How they bonded over old recipes passed down from one generation to another. How they became good friends? Good enough for you to live with us for three years so you could finish high school out here. Did you ever think you'd find your first love through your mom’s Facebook group? 

I could have gone out with Sorn next door. I could have hooked up with Brian who’s lived down the street from me since we moved here. I could have found my One True Love in high school and gone on to marry them and live the ideal 21st century married life together.

I could have fallen in love with anyone.

But no. It had to be you.

I had to fall in love with a boy who came from a land with a culture so rich that America could only dream to have. I fell in love with a guy who had a mouth big enough to eat a burger in one bite. I fell in love with a guy who loved strawberry milk and wore the same three sweatshirts. I fell in love with a guy who looked like he was bad news (you have a killer bitchface) but he actually doodled song lyrics in the margin of his textbooks. I fell in love with a guy whose heart was as soft as a newborn kitten and was fragile like one too.

I fell in love with Lim Jaebeom.

The closet has been cleared out. Everything in there is mine, aside from a scarf that might be Brian’s. No more surprises from you. I cast a lost look around my room once more, unsure of what to do next.

“When in doubt, always go for the shelves.” Those words echo in your voice in my head and my hand is moving toward the shelves before I can register it. Startled, I try to pull back and end up knocking a few things over.

Dust flies when the books make contact with the floor. Papers and pictures come spilling out onto the hardwood. A glossy strip with our faces lands near my foot. I get on the same level as the fallen texts.

If Brian was here, he’d yell, “The sacred texts!” because he was a sucker for a good meme insert. But Brian’s not here. He’s out there, having a fun weekend getaway with his boyfriend in the next town over. 

(we could have been on it too)

Its from when we went to the arcade for our seventh date. I liked games. You wanted to take pictures. Or was it the fifth? I can't remember. 

It took us four tries before we got the results we (I) wanted. The first and second poses were casual. Peace signs and funny faces. The third one shows us with our cheeks squished together. Me winking, you pouting. 

It had taken a total of eight minutes to convince you to do the last one. You thought they were embarrassing, and we were more likely to get pimples that way because of the germ transfer and whatnot. I didn't care. In the end, I got what I wanted. 

The cheek squishing didn't become a couple regular for us. It was an occasional treat, one you dished out when I least expected it. If someone were to go through our phones, they would find more pictures of us with our cheeks pressed together in your phone than they would in mine. 

I thought you did it to keep me on my toes. But now I wonder if you did it to be mean, knowing how much I loved little things like that.

I trace the edges of the paper. The corner is folded on one side. I spend a few minutes trying to lay it flat. The end result leaves me with irritated fingertips and a crease which marked the location of the fold. I place the picture back in between the pages, and that's when I look at my fingers for the first time in days. 

Brittle and dry, with nails bitten to the quick. I used to never bite my nails, only the hangnails. But that changed too, after you.

Arguing over whose hands were bigger was a favorite pastime of yours. I'd never noticed the difference between our hands before you pointed them out. Yours were rough and chapped because of the farm and your lack of belief in hand creams. Mine were soft, due to the sanitizer and a lifetime of not doing hard labor. At first glance they weren't much different, but if you looked closely mine were bigger than yours, which was kind of cute because you were built like a brick shithouse but had baby hands.

Size doesn’t matter because whenever I grabbed your hands and slotted my fingers into the spaces between yours, we fit perfectly.

I don’t think I’m an easy person to date. I don’t talk much. I’m always on my phone but I’m not that active on social media. I don’t have a lot of thoughts, not the way you did. You had the gift of expression where I struggled with basic things sometimes. 

I could be mean. I was mean. I usually never wanted to go out, but you wanted to explore every inch of LA and commit it to print memory on your Canon Autoboy. Half of your photography excursions ended up becoming our dates. There are more pictures of me doing things than there are of you and I doing things together.

You weren’t easy either. You sucked at sports. You sucked at games even more. You were a sore loser. Remember the time we went over to Ten’s house to play League Of Legends and you got so mad you chucked the keyboard out the window and called it stupid? Ten found it pretty hilarious. I didn’t. I don’t think I ever forgave you for that. 

You didn’t understand memes and most of the time I had to explain them to you which defeated the entire purpose of showing them to you in the first place. Sometimes, you just wanted to read with your head in my lap when I wanted to go out and do something. It was frustrating how one second we were seamless and the next, we were on two opposite ends of the spectrum.

Jackson told us that it was all about meeting each other halfway.

You wrote songs about everything. You had a nice voice (warm, sweet and honeyed) never sung them to me. It stung but I couldn’t say it to you. I asked, once. I tried to play it cool but I think you mistook it for casual indifference, which was probably why you never showed me.

You got better at English. I got better at Korean. But where you used words, I preferred to use none.

I cried a lot. You didn’t cry at all. But you always held some part of me when I did and I didn’t crack any more jokes about dysfunctional tear ducts.

Whenever I sent you a meme, you responded with some funny or cute cat post. My favorite was (and still is) Dinner Table Cat. Yours was the Spongebob Caveman meme. 

But somehow, we made it work. 

We made it work because we were in love. 

Love has this way of making you feel invincible and vulnerable at the same time. It’s a scary thing, love.

Brian and I used to make fun of the couples who loved cliches. We were merciless. I think you were god’s idea of vengeance for all the cliche couples we’d wronged because I met you. I couldn’t stand being in the same space with you at first. But then I couldn’t stand any space without you. Our first kiss was an _indirect kiss_, for fucks sake, when you bought a chocolate shake for both of us to share and there was only one straw. 

The first gift you gave me was a CD full of my favorite songs because I was too lazy to put them in a playlist. After that, you would curate Spotify playlists for me on special occasions. Playlists I whined about being too long (because I secretly wanted you to make me listen to them) and you would let out this exasperated sigh before sitting down next to me and giving me an earbud and pressing play. 

It was your Spotify playlist that was playing in the background when we had sex for the first time.

Sex. After Date Number Something or the Other, we got drunk. You managed to get your hands on some soju and seemed hellbent on making me try some. It was bad. I gagged before the first shot had made its way down my throat. You laughed, slapping me on the back. You made me drink another glass before handing me some wine.

We drank until we worked up a nice buzz. The taste of soju had been overwritten by the wine. Then you were sliding next to me. Then you were on top of me. It was perfect. 

We’d touched bases before. We were two teenagers, what did you expect? But we’d never gone all the way. But that night, inhibitions lowered by alcohol (local and international) and your broad chest pressed against my naked one, things got a little more, intense. It felt as if I’d fallen asleep at the wheel while driving the higher functions of my brain.

But thank whatever deity was up there at that moment, your query about condoms was the speed bump that jerked me awake. I sat up, pushing you off, and that was not a good idea, because my head spun so hard I almost threw up. Classy.

“Mark,” you groaned, dropping your head on my chest. Jackson often liked to point out how our size difference was the opposite of our ages. I secretly loved it.

“No,” I say, trying to be firm. It’s kind of hard when _you’re_ hard. I pull my pants back up, _somehow_, and lie back down. “You know the rules. We’ve talked about this.”

Doing things with you wasn’t a problem before. It became one when I turned eighteen. Then I became very aware of how it could become a problem. I was officially legal. You were not. 

You flop back onto the bed with an irritated huff. “Fuck the rules, hyung.”

“Well the rules you tend to fuck usually end up fucking you over in the end and I’m not about to take my chances. _We will wait.”_

You weren’t happy about it (oh boy, you made sure your displeasure was known at every waking moment) but you waited. I tried to cheer you up with nose kisses, but failed. 

Thinking about our first time _hurts._

_\- frosting smeared over your chest. You trying to salvage the seductive mood we’d built up over the past hour. The condom you’d gotten was the wrong size. It was late and the only store in the vicinity that did have them had a limited selection. You didn’t care then, just grabbing whatever the cashier gave you only to regret it when you realize it was of the glow-in-the-dark variety. I was giggling, because your dick was glowing orange red and you were scowling and then our eyes meet and then you’re on top, the frosting is warm and greasy and I’m not laughing anymore -_

It hurts because it was so fucking perfect and not at the same time and I actively try not to think about, because when I do, I start crying and once I start, I can’t stop.

Because you aren’t there to stop the tears anymore.

_I honestly thought you were the one._

My body has been moving on autopilot this entire time. I realize I’ve managed to wind up half the room and I’m holding the wrapper of the condom we used on your eighteenth birthday (birthday sex, another cliche) and I held on to the torn foil out of sentimentality. I shove it in the first box I see in front of me and move on.

Another box, another piece of paper falls out. It's a vets business card. I'd never been to the pet clinic even though it's like a few blocks away from the house and we have three dogs. But in the brief pocket of time we shared, I swore I went there more than I ever had in the years before I met you. You _loved_ cats. I once joked that you loved pussy more than me and you never refuted that. I wonder if that was a Sign. Your lockscreen was Nora. Your homescreen was me. Mom used to warn you about catching diseases from the strays but that never stopped you from wanting to feed them or from trying to pet them. Dabbing them with Pyodine never did reassure my mother the way shots did. “What would your mother say if I let her only son die of rabies? Mark, take him to the doctor!”

I think we went to the vet more than we went out on dates. I’ve got the receipts to prove it.

It's dark. The whole day has gone by without me realizing it. This entire time I haven't said one word. It used to bother you sometimes. How quiet I was. How quiet I could get. How I didn't speak when I should. You weren't that great at talking either. You were more of "write my feelings into a song for the whole world to hear than say them to the face of the one who needs to hear it the most" type. I wonder if you still are.

Will you write a song about this too? Will you write about how you came to the states and fell in love with a boy from LA who loved cheek squishes and nose kisses? Will you sing about how he learned an entire language for you and you for him? Will I one day hear it on the radio and cry on the sidewalk as you cry about how he broke your heart and you, his? 

The screen has finally loaded. The Wi-Fi is back on. The timeline shows a picture. It’s you, with a boy I’ve never met before but know. He’s wearing hipster glasses (with a slight jolt I realize they’re yours) and he’s not even smiling that hard, but the corners of his eyes are crinkling and you have your arm around his shoulder and your faces are almost touching.

You’re close enough to squish cheeks.

The relationship status, which has been single for the past six months, two weeks and five days, is now in a relationship. 

It’s the boy you met on The Trip.

The Trip which started the downfall of this relationship.

Before you, I would have claimed it’s not so easy to change in a few days. But yours truly, moi, is proof of that. It took me a moment to fall in love with you. I like to think (for the sake of my own sanity) it took you a little more than a moment to fall out of love with me.

The Trip was a summer exchange program I encouraged you to go to. I was being a supportive boyfriend. The Trip would be the longest you and I would be apart since you came to the States.

It was only a month. What was a month compared to a year? 

I’ll never know how long it took for you to fall for Him. I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask. 

The you who went on the trip wasn’t the one who came back. It was some other you. 

Time as a concept ceased to exist after you came back. Pre-Trip and Post-Trip is how I refer to them. Pre-Trip you and I were history. Post-Trip you and I were always fighting. When we weren’t fighting, we weren’t speaking. 

Our voices never went up, but we didn’t need to raise them to fight. In a relationship where the main mode of communication was tone and silence, it didn’t take much for things to go south. A stretch of silence that went on a beat too long. An unfriendly tone. A sour note. Things went bad, so fast that I wonder how we were together to begin with.

Here’s a thing I’m about to say with that you might disagree with. ‘I think we should see other people for a while,’ hurts more than ‘I think we should break up.’ The latter is definite. Things have ended, your pieces are all over the place, you just have to pick them back up and piece them together. It’ll hurt, but you’ll manage.

The former is more damaging than you think. It implies that you're not good enough to break up with entirely, but you’re also not good enough to stay with completely. It’s like you’re a backup reserve in case the other thing doesn’t work out. It’s soul-crushing to be honest. I loved you, but I wasn’t strong enough to go through that. You were willing to give two things a chance. Me and this other person. 

But why would you need someone else when you have _me_?

Am I not enough? 

I never asked for the Why. I couldn’t. I think deep down I knew the Why but wasn’t brave enough to ask you for the What.

I wish you’d been mean about it. I wish, the last time we talked, you had been a complete and absolute asshole during the breakup talk so my anger and pain could be justified. But you weren’t.

You were still the awkward but gentle boy I fell in love with. You were kind. You chose your words with care, because you know how we could hurt each other with those. Words hurt more than fists. When you left, you were wearing that red hoodie, you pressed your cheek against mine, and said, “Take care, hyung,” before walking out of my life.

It was you who said we should see other people but it was me who said we should break up. I was the one who cut the thread of hope you dangled in front of me. I snipped it before it could unravel completely. 

I don't understand where we went wrong. I mean, I'm trying. It's just. Was I blind? Were you blind? Were we both blind or were we both deliberately choosing to not see the faults as they were, choosing to gloss them over with the good things, believing we could last forever?

I mean, how do you just wake up one day and realize you’re not in love with someone anymore? Out of the blue like that too. How do you explain to someone that you don’t love them like before without making them rethink that entire chunk of their life they spent with and dedicated to you?

“Sometimes, things happen.” Brian and Jackson were our, no, _my_, two constants. You were close with them, but not like I was. They weren’t your people like they are mine. “Sometimes, it’s not you. Nor is it them. Sometimes, shit happens.”

I asked what that meant. Over and over. But each time, their answer was the same. 

Sometimes, you just fall out of love just as easily you fell in it. Shit happens. Life goes on. 

My stomach rumbles, reminding me that I am more than just a boy-shaped bottle of misery. We used to have races to see who could eat more; we both shared a voracious appetite. Jackson and Brian used to complain about the food bill every time we went out and we would always goad them into paying via rounds of rock-paper-scissors. Best two out of three.

I’m in the living room. The house is empty. It’s Saturday. Saturdays are family nights. I was supposed to go but I haven’t attended any since we dropped you off at the airport. 

A green bird shaped post-it on the fridge tells me there’s dinner in the microwave.

I lift the lid up. Spicy tofu stew. Your favorite.

I lose what little appetite I had. I decide to drink something instead. 

I used to drink straight from the source before you came along and converted me. You wouldn’t drink straight from the bottle either; your dad said that was something uncivilized people did. You wouldn’t even let _me_ guzzle down water straight from the bottle. It was one of those habits that are ingrained into you too much to bother explaining logically. 

There’s nothing special about mugs. Things aren’t special until you make them out to be. Mugs aren’t even something you normally think about But there is something special about the black mug with the initials _JB from SK_ engraved on it in white Gothic letters that Dad got you.

In order to make you feel at home, my parents tried to incorporate certain elements into our house. That customized mug was one of those things. I thought it was hideous, and wanted to throw it out. But you held on to it, using it for everything possible. You even ate ice cream in it once.

The mug is also one of the few things you left behind.

(like me)

Mom kept moving the mug at the back of the cupboard where I couldn’t see it. An impossible feat since this clunky bastard is the biggest one in there.

Steeling myself I reach in and grab it. I have to go on my tippy toes to do so because you aren’t here to lift me up. You're not going to anymore. 

Slamming it down with a little more force than necessary, I messily pour myself a glass of water. Without heating it up, I eat the stew. Tofu is gross when it’s cold. I don’t stop until it’s empty and I feel like throwing up.

There’s too much of you to pack away. Since you’ve been gone, all I’ve been doing is winding you up. You’re all over the place. You spent more time in my room than in the room we gave you. I don’t even have the liberty of packing up and moving out. You’re in these four walls. There are signs of you having been here everywhere.

I’m tired of hiding from them. I shouldn’t have to hide from things in my own house. 

Before I realize it, I’m mad. I’m standing up and I’m walking towards the door and I’m throwing it open.

How dare you walk into my house, my life, pry open the doors of my heart, make yourself at home and then walk out when you found a new home? Did you ever, for a second, stop to consider, that hey, maybe I should have a better excuse for ending this relationship. That hey, maybe I should work at it more, because human beings aren’t perfect, especially when they’re teenagers, as teenagers are basically humans who are works in progress. 

_They are not complete._

Some of them don’t even get past the halfway point.

There’s a resounding crash. The mug has somehow gone from being intact in my hand to pieces on the driveway. Mr. Dunwall, who’s always out walking his dog at this time of night, is looking at me as if I’ve lost my mind - he’s not wrong - and his Border Collie is barking at me.

Slamming the door shut, I walk back inside and empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet. Tofu never agreed with my stomach anyway. I don’t want to brush my teeth, but I don’t want my mouth stinking up with puke, sadness and despair and tofu.

With monumental effort, I make the trek back to my room. Blindly reaching for the switch, I turn the lights out and collapse on top of the comforter. Head aching, stomach empty and chest less hollow than before, I fall asleep.

I drift in and out of sleep. At one point, Mom comes in, feeling my forehead and muttering under her breath in concern. A part of me feels guilty for making her worry so much, but I don’t move until her footsteps fade. 

A panicky feeling has been niggling at the back of my mind and it’s that feeling that propels me out of bed and back to the driveway. The shattered ceramic pieces of the mug are still there. It’s beyond salvaging, but I scoop it in my palms anyway, cutting a finger on one of the shards.

Several years from now, I think as I make my way back into my room, the pieces cupped in my hand, maybe we’ll cross paths again. Several years from now, we’ll be different people. We will be with different people. Several years from now, I won’t love you anymore. Several years from now, I won’t be feeling like I am right now. 

(like this broken mug)

Several years from now, I’ll say hello to you again.

But for now, I think, as I pull the shirt out from under the bed, wrap the mug carefully in it, the shards tinkling as they touch, I’d like to try and say goodbye.

It won’t be easy, and it’ll take time. The wrapper goes next and then the photo booth picture. I’m not naive enough to think that I’ll be over you before this year ends. Or the next. But I think, time will dull the pain, make the memories hazy and my heart mature before it dives headfirst into someone new. This isn’t over, I tell myself as I place all these things into an empty box and push it under my bed until it hits the wall.

After all, shit happens. Life goes on. 

\----

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to write some fluff wtf.


End file.
